Getting Taken

When we first arrive in the country, at midnight, our taxi literally needs to be pushed and kick-started. It sputters its way into the slum -- or the middle class neighborhood (who can tell the difference here?) -- where our hotel is located, to the amusement and amazement of our family.

And thus sets the tone for most of the rides in Senegal. The taxi ride from Dakar up to Saint Louis involves a lot of peanuts. And something else that we think is peanuts but turns out to be bitter and inedible. By us. Our taxi driver loves them and downs them like, well, peanuts....

We can't ask our driver what he's eating, however, as he literally does not speak one word of French. After negotiating with a ragtag group, he's the one that gets in to the car to drive us -- 40,000CFA (about 60€ or $80) for a 3-4 hour ride up the coast.

Inexplicably, our driver keeps stopping by the side of the highway -- and not just for nuts, which we would understand. He keeps stopping by groups of people selling random things roadside and either picking up or dropping off tiny slips of paper. What could be so important yet fit on something a quarter the size of a Post-It note? It's baffling. He doesn't even necessarily hand the message over...just waves it out the window, lets it fall to the ground and drives off. It's a mystery. If there's anybody with knowledge about Senegal that can clear this up for us, please comment!

We're rather relieved he doesn't speak French, though, as the taxi driver that gets us from the Ile de Gorée ferry to the stand where we get in this long-distance taxi is so annoying that I can't stand him for one more minute. And that is before he very deliberately cheats us on our change, causing me to scream at him both in English and French. I go so far as to kick his car door, though I can't tell if it adds any dents because it's already so pockmarked, who can tell if there's one more?

My outburst embarrasses and horrifies Anthony, and slightly frightens the girls. So I am sure this makes me both a crazy hothead and a horrible mother, but mostly what I feel is justified and satisfied. And, frankly, a little proud of myself for swearing in French. It entertains the hell out of the local taxi driver, crowd, too.

The rest of our trip to Saint Louis passes without anger or incident, but that's not to say it's totally boring. Besides the mystery mini-notes, you just never know what you'll see through the cracked windshield of your shitty Senegalese taxi. Will you be sharing the road with cows?

Will you suddenly stop in the middle of the highway, where there's a speedbump, in order to buy roadside melons?

What about the guys hanging on at roughly 50mph to the van in front of you? Will they wave as you pass?

Well, if all else fails, you can at least buy a bra from the roving bra-cart.

 

I Bet Obama Got a Spoon

Here we are: Africa! We've been to Morocco, and while that is technically Africa, it's Northern Africa, the Arabic zone, and it feels closer to the Middle East. Here we're in sub-Saharan Africa or what the French call "Afrique Noire" -- Black Africa. It's the first time for the girls and me, though Anthony lived in Nigeria for a few years straight out of university.

We spend our first couple days on Ile de Gorée, a tiny island just a short ferry ride away from Dakar. Given the proximity to the big city, I figure we will find all descriptions of it as charming vastly overrated. Imagine my surprise then when we find it delightful and charming as all get out. It turns out Obama was here just last year, and if it's good enough for the President, it's good enough for us.

The charm comes from the fact that it's a vehicle-free island -- you can easily stroll the whole thing in about an hour or two -- surrounded by pretty blue Atlantic waters and dotted with colorful, old, colonial buildings.

 

 

 

Of course, being an island, there are boats and beaches (and beach hair-dos), though it does seem too close to Dakar for the water to be clean enough for swimming.

 

 

 

 

Because this island sits off the westernmost hump of Africa, it makes geographic sense that it would have ties to the slave trade. What those ties are is slightly disputed, frankly, but no matter what its actual historic role, the island serves as a valuable symbolic reminder of the trade. A statue stands outside the museum, which supposedly (though this is partly what's in dispute) housed captured slaves till they boarded the ships to take them to the New World. The door at the bottom would have been the spot where they exited to get on the small ships that would take them to the big ships. It's quite sobering.

 

 

 

Sobering as the history is, the island itself is tremendously cheerful. And, in fact, we have a breakfast here where I have not only the best laugh of the trip but probably of the decade -- one of those rare laughs where you're doubled over, sides aching, crying, and unable to breathe. It's a long story, and mostly one of those you-had-to-be-there anecdotes, but essentially, we sit down in our B&B as the first table ready for breakfast of tea and breads. The tables that sit after us are all served plates heaped with a dozen pastries, while we only get two -- to be shared among the four of us. Then throughout the breakfast, the staff ask us for our knives, then spoons, then cups so they can wash them and give them to other tables. By the end of the meal, it passes from annoying to sublimely funny as I am actually mid-way through buttering a piece of bread when the knife is snatched from me, and can't even finish my cup of tea for laughing before that is snatched away, too. Meanwhile, the other guests are enjoying their pastries with multiple knives for butter and jam, with extra spoons to stir the tea in what used to be our mugs. I bet when Obama was here, he got to use his spoon. It may be a former French colony, and French may be the language we use here, but it's exactly the opposite of the long, lingering, unhurried café in Paris.